CIOs’ role expanding
The latest Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey shows that 52 per cent of those surveyed are investing in more nimble technology platforms to assist their organisations to better innovate and adapt to the ever changing environment in which they operate.
That’s according to Marc Snyder, Managing Director, CIO Advisory, KPMG Global Centre of Excellence. He made the disclosure yesterday morning as he addressed those attending the KPMG 2nd Annual CIO Forum, at Hilton Hotel where the findings of the survey which was conducted between December 19, 2016 and April 3, 2017, were released. That survey, he said which is the largest IT leadership survey in the world, was conducted among almost 4500 chief information officers (CIOs) and technology leaders across some 86 countries.
“Rather than cut back, this year’s survey showed that CIOs are investing to create flexibility and agility… Both those top two, creating more nimble technology and finding ways to work with the restricted budgets were tightly associated with our survey last year, so it seems like this is becoming a sustained trend of investing to adapt instead of retrenching,” he said.
Snyder added that investments in technology have essentially remained the same or were ramped up over the past year. He revealed that in fact only one in ten CIOs have been holding back in their investments. This, he said, is a clear indication that the majority of CIOs were addressing the uncertainty head on. He made the point while also noting that almost half of the respondents indicated that they were upping investment in cyber security and were choosing to work with trusted partners. The survey showed that cyber security vulnerability remained high, with one third of the information technology (IT) leaders indicating that their particular organisation had in fact experienced a cyber attack.
His comments came as he said that influence of CIOs in organisations is growing. He added that two-thirds of CIOs, the highest level recorded to date, are sitting on the executive board. This, he explained, is a significant change, but the KPMG official maintained there is still more work to be done. He made the point as he suggested there is a clear gap in the roles CIOs want to perform, and what they actually do.
“So 60 per cent believe that the top IT leaders should be the executive leading innovation across the entire business. But when you boil it down, you find that in fact only 26 per cent actually are. So the reality right now is that many IT leaders are having a pivotal role in the technology aspect of innovation, but not in the business aspect and… my belief is that the CIOs that are going to truly position themselves to lead their organisations in innovation are the ones that are going to be able to extend beyond the technologist role to the business leader role. But this is clearly easier said than done,” he said. (JRT)